Joe Grant, Michael Giaimo, and me, around 1994, while we were making Pocahontas. Michael Giaimo art directed and Joe was a concept artist, visdev artist, character designer on the film. I co-directed Pocahontas alongside my renowned partner Eric Goldberg.

Joe Grant and I worked a long time together while he did his second stint at Disney, from 1989ish to 2005ish. We would work in my office sitting across my Kem-Weber-designed, original Disney studio director desk meant to accommodate one person on each side, and he would sit back and put his feet up on the desk and his arms behind his head and we would talk about ideas and thoughts as we shaped concepts for the new idea I had to make Pocahontas. Joe worked as Walt Disney's right hand man for most of the 30s and 40s, running his character model dept., designing all the characters with his all-star team of artists for all the films being made. But more than that, Joe was his confidant, his Consigliere, and story advisor. They would meet at the end of every work day, sharing a cocktail in Walt's office and relaxing as they discussed the daily dilemmas and staff issues.

Joe and I met as I was completing my first film, The Rescuers Down Under. I was dumbstruck at the how vibrant, vital, exuberant, clever, with it, funny, fun and personable, the great Joe Grant turned out to be that day at lunch at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank. By the end of that lunch I had a new best friend and we started to meet and discuss future film ideas and stories that would make great animated features or shorts. Joe and I struck up a fast and deep friendship almost immediately. We both loved working together, as natural a fit as I have ever had working creatively with anybody. His intellect, wit, and vast wealth of experience was an advanced art education every single day. Joe would usually pop in around 1p.m. and stay for a few hours, sucking on coffee nips all afternoon. We would go over the drawings he and I had done since the day before, and discuss new ways to push our story even further. He worked in two ways. He would either sit down quietly at home at night and just start drawing, didn't matter what. He would not specifically draw pertinent drawings for the film, he would just draw without thinking. Let the pen wander. Eventually his mind would drift into a Pocahontas idea and he would start to go down that road visually, but he never forced anything, just let it float into his pen tip as light as a feather. Not important whether it fits our current thinking, or is good or viable, just important to let the drawings begin. His other method was the same except in written word form. He had an interesting way of jotting down random thoughts, stream of consciousness writing, and letting his imagination fire off as he wrote, making it up as he drifted into an animated realm of his mind that only Joe knew how to activate. I was unbelievably blessed to have had that opportunity to sit there and work with Joe exactly the way he had worked with Walt Disney, Bill Peet, J.P. Miller, Mary Blair, James Bordrero, Albert Hurter, Dick Kelsey, Martin Provensen, and his partner during his first disney tenure, which ended in 1950, Dick Huemer. Joe taught me many many things over the years, but the greatest lesson of all was not to fight change. Embrace the way life shifts you into new roles and new opportunities. Let age refine you and shape you into a more dimensional artist. Never stop being curious and active in your life and in your art. Here is Joe's favorite quote with which he lived by from Henri Bergson:

To exist is to change,

To change is to mature,

To mature is to create oneself endlessly.

Here are a few pages of Joe's stream of consciousness writings:

Joe's invention of Grandmother Willow by writing it out like this was the typical way of working with me back then and exactly the way he had worked with Walt fro so many years. Get a bit of business on a character and see where it takes you. FInd the entertainment first then develop a story around the character. I had developed the grandmother mentor tree as a full grown spruce pine, and one day Joe came in with this drawing and these writings with a fresh way to start the film in modern day Virginia with an old ancient stump being bothered by a bird pecking away on one of his oldest rings close to his center, and this pecking on that ring awakens his long dormant memories about Pocahontas and how they first met almost 400 years ago.

Joe took up calligraphy in his fifties and always wrote thoughts down in his practiced fancy script. He was determined to perfect this calligraphy skill. By the way, Jeffrey Katzenberg decided not to have us go any further with any flashback story ideas so we moved on. Flashbacks were never Jeffrey's preference.

Joe's design group back in the thirties. Every single character design model sheet had to have Joe's initials hand written onto the sheet before it could be deemed officially the correct model.

Joe designed the witch from Snow White as well as the vain Queen before her transformation.

No idea who Hans is or was, but "Best Witches" is a classic Joe play on words.

You can see the final design was close to what Joe conceived.

Joe told me one time that the actress who did the voice wasn't quite impressing Walt, until she took her false teeth out and delivered that incredibly rich, juicy performance that ended up in the film.

Joe's designs for the vain Queen.

Fantasia ideas. Joe was in charge of finding the best music possibilities to put to animated visuals, and then come up with concepts to match the musical pieces.

Joe's designs for Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours segment of Fantasia is some of his best design work. He would also sculpt all the characters himself. I visited his home studio and he showed me he still had the Hippo sculpt.

Joe Grant, Dick Huemer, partners and pals.

Jiminy Cricket concept by Joe.

Joe's memorial tribute from John Lasseter and all his devoted fans at Pixar.

Lady and Tramp was an original idea of Joe's based on his and his wife's pet cocker spaniel named Lady.

A presentation at the El Capitan theater in Hollywood, where Andreas Deja showed a great photo of Joe's wife Jennie, and their pet cocker spaniel named Lady who inspired the film. Walt later had a writer write a Lady and the Tramp story for a major publication so he could lend credibility to the project, according to Joe. That always stung Joe a little bit I think because he felt Walt was intentionally diluting his authorship of the film. After Dumbo got huge raves for Joe and Dick Heumer, as the geniuses behind the film, Walt took offense at Joe and Dick getting such accolades and praise. He stormed into their offices once and threw down the latest issue of Time magazine with a photo of Joe and Dick as the makers of Dumbo, and Walt said pointedly, "Well! I guess there's no need for me around here any more." Walt had been on his studios' South American good will/research trip for a large bulk of the time Dumbo was being developed and rightfully felt a little left out of the big hit, Dumbo. When Dumbo became a smash hit, it had to have hurt his already bruised ego and pride following all the less successful releases in the early forties like Fantasia, and Pinocchio. To leave and have the cheap quick little film made without his typical daily input, Dumbo, be the big hit.

The start of the slinky, slippery, siamese cats.

Burny Mattinson, Roland Wilson and his wife, and Joe and me at what was our favorite place to eat lunch every day the now gone, Genio's on Olive Ave., Burbank. Joe and I or Joe, Burny and I would go to lunch there pretty much every day. Joe was loved by all the waitresses because he remembered every detail of all their lives and would ask them how this was going or how that was going, never ever forgetting what their daily lives were all about. After he passed away, they all were so moved and saddened by Joe's demise. Joe, Burny and I had eaten there in fact the day before he died.

This is what my heart looks like now. Reese Ryder Rodriguez. A Grand granddaughter.

Frozen II trailer out today

Happy Birthday to the center of fun in our family and the center of selfless support and caring with a smile—- my precious perfect center of my heart and always will be, Bridget.#birthdaygirl #daughterlove #daughterpride #daughter

In 2012, while art directing the original Wreck It Ralph, we needed to put cute child frosting writing on the cookie V. gives Ralph in Wreck It Ralph so it felt like little Vanellope wrote it. I asked my 15 year old daughter at the time, Bridget, to write these words on graham crackers in real frosting so we could give it a truthful sincere feel. She wrote it as best she could with wiggly frosting. I took these crackers into the Disney artist who was doing the cookie. Check these film pics against the real frosting! The ace Disney computer artist nailed it perfectly! And see the “real Vanellope” who wrote the actual words, Bridget, circa 2012. #wreckitralph2 #wreckitralph #disney #waltdisney #mikegabrielart #disneyfan